CORE CONCEPTS Seismic tomography uses earthquake waves to probe the inner Earth CORE CONCEPTS Sid Perkins, Science Writer Computerized tomography (CT) scans revolutionized medicine by giving doctors and diagnosticians the ability to visualize tissues deep within the body in three dimensions. In recent years, a different sort of imaging technique has done the same for geophysi- cists. Seismic tomography allows them to detect and depict subterranean features. The advent of the approach has proven to be a boon for researchers looking to better understand what’s going on beneath our feet. Results have of- fered myriad insights into environmental conditions within the Earth, sometimes hundreds or even thou- sands of kilometers below the surface. And in some cases, the technique offers evidence that bolsters models of geophysical processes long suspected but previously only theorized, researchers say. Seismic tomography “lets us image Earth’s structures at all sorts of scales,” says Jeffrey Freymueller, a geo- Data gathered by a network of seismic instruments (red) have enabled researchers physicist at Michigan State University in East Lansing to discern a region of relatively cold, stiff rock (shades of green and blue) beneath eastern North America. This is likely to be the remnants of an ancient tectonic and director of the national office of the National Sci- plate. Image credit: Suzan van der Lee (Northwestern University, Evanston, IL). ence Foundation’s EarthScope. That 15-year program, among other things, operates an array of seismometers— some permanent, some temporary—that has col- through rocks that are colder, denser, and drier. By lected data across North America. Among its more im- knowing the precise time at which a distant earth- pressive finds: the remnants of an ancient tectonic plate quake occurred, as well as the times at which vibrations sitting deep below North America and a plume of buoy- from that temblor arrived at each seismometer in a ant material fueling a well-known geothermal hot spot. network, researchers can “invert” the data and map out the portions of the planet that those seismic waves Dissecting the Earth had traveled through. Tomography, roughly translated from Greek, means Before seismic tomography came along, geophysi- “writing by slices.” Researchers relish this ability to cists could only imagine what might be happening take digital models of three-dimensional (3D) objects deep within Earth. The ability to probe thousands of and slice through them to create cross-sections—to kilometers underground can help researchers better virtually dissect them from any angle. Both medical decipher how those processes are affecting our planet’s tomography and seismic tomography use large arrays surface. of sensors to collect energy that has traveled through “Seismic tomography has revolutionized our un- a given body. Medical tomography typically uses derstanding of tectonics and allows us to identify differences in the amounts of transmitted energy connections between the deep mantle and Earth’s to create images with blacks, whites, and shades surface,” says Laura Webb, a geologist at the of gray. University of Vermont in Burlington. But seismic tomography uses differences in the speed of seismic waves as they travel through Earth to Long Time Buried construct its 3D model. In general, vibrations travel Using EarthScope data, researchers have gained in- more slowly through rocks that are hotter or less dense, numerable insights into what lies beneath North contain hydrated minerals, or are partially melted. On America—and the geophysical effects those features the other hand, seismic waves travel more quickly have had, and are still having, on the continent. Many Published under the PNAS license. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1909777116 PNAS | August 13, 2019 | vol. 116 | no. 33 | 16159–16161 Downloaded by guest on October 1, 2021 region can be so seismically active despite being far from tectonic plate boundaries where most large earthquakes occur,” Webb notes. From Titanic to Tiny But seismic tomography can discern things far smaller than kilometers-thick slabs of subducted material. A slowdown in the seismic waves passing beneath Yel- lowstone National Park provides evidence for a deep- rooted plume of warm, buoyant material rising to the surface there (4). Geophysicists have long theorized that such plumes fuel volcanic activity at so-called hot spots around the world. Similarly, seismic tomography has offered views into the mid-to-low-level portions of Earth’s crust beneath the park. There, a substantial slowing of seismic waves betrays the presence of a 46,000-cubic-kilometer blob of partially melted rock that connects the deep mantle plume to the shallow magma reservoir that’s the heat source for the region’s famed geysers (5). On an even smaller scale and using a small network of a few dozen seismometers, researchers mapped out parts of the plumbing system beneath Mount Erebus, a volcano in Antarctica (6). During the 2008– A continent-wide network of seismometers like this 2009 field season, the team set off a dozen small blasts one, which was installed in south-central Alaska in 2016, on or near the peak, which was surrounded by a helps researchers probe Earth's inner structure. Image roughly 4-kilometer-by-4-kilometer network of 23 credit: EarthScope National Office, a National Science seismic instruments that had been deployed the pre- Foundation funded project/Max Kaufman. EarthScope scientists study the structure and evolution of the North vious summer. The seismic data from those blasts American continent using three primary observatories, revealed that a large blob of magma—which in some the Plate Boundary Observatory, US Array, and the San places slowed down seismic waves by as much as 1 ki- Andreas Observatory at Depth. For more information, lometer per second—lies beneath the northwestern visit www.earthscope.org. slope of the volcano. The tubes that occasionally channel molten rock to the surface during eruptions are of these result from the subduction of a tectonic plate too small to be discerned by the analyses, the scientists that began off North America’s Pacific coast more than report, but the volcano’s magma chamber, which lies at 165 million years ago. Although seismic tomography least 500 meters below the surface, shows up clearly. shows that the western edge of that ancient slab of Long-term studies of active volcanoes could reveal how ocean crust—which geologists have dubbed the changes in the size and shape of those peaks’ magma Farallon Plate—still lies offshore, the bulk of it lies reservoirs correlate with eruptions. beneath the western United States. Fluids that were One of seismic tomography’s most impressive squeezed from the slab as it was shoved eastward coups, however, may be spotting regions of rock ki- beneath the continent rose to hydrate the underside lometers below Earth’s surface where the minerals’ of Earth’s crust. Later, the languid motion of the un- atoms may be arranged differently from those in sur- derlying mantle buoyed the crust upward, gradually rounding regions or at different depths (7). Using data elevating the Colorado Plateau (1). The results of that gathered by researchers in previous studies, Fan-Chi process are indeed impressive, Webb notes: That Lin, a geophysicist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake steady boost in the crust, over time, enabled the re- City, and his colleagues used tomography to image gion’s rivers to carve spectacular canyons. Earth’s crust beneath the Yellowstone caldera in Farther east, remnants of the Farallon Plate sit be- Wyoming and the Long Valley caldera in California. neath the Midwest, where they’ve shed even more For their study, the researchers added an extra water to create a weak zone that stretches from just layer to the tomographic analysis: They not only esti- below the crust there to depths of around 200 kilome- mated differences in the overall velocities of seismic waves passing through the crust, but they also looked ters (2), says Webb. That weak spot, not coincidentally, at the differences between the speeds of horizontally lies right beneath the New Madrid Fault Zone—which polarized seismic waves compared with those that spawned some of America’s largest earthquakes about were vertically polarized. two centuries ago. As the ancient slab slowly sinks, Those findings suggest that the rocks lying be- mantle flow around it creates a downward suction that neath the Yellowstone and Long Valley calderas at stresses and deforms the overlying crust (3). Those depths of between 5 and 18 kilometers were likely stresses, if large enough, can trigger earthquakes. arranged in a number of horizontal layers. Some of “Seismic tomography has shed new light on how this those layers could be only a few meters thick, says Lin, 16160 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1909777116 Perkins Downloaded by guest on October 1, 2021 and as much as 6% of the rock within them could be Following up on earlier field work, Koper and his melted. And that slushiness, in turn, could have big team deployed a few seismometers on the floor of implications for how quickly, on geological timescales, Yellowstone Lake last summer. Those instruments, as those reservoirs of mushy rock could mobilize to well as others in a shore-based network, will record generate future eruptions, the researchers say. If geo- vibrations generated by the lake’s waves as well as physicists based their long-term predictions on analy- those generated by innumerable small quakes in the ses that didn’t include layers of partially molten rock, Yellowstone area. Using that data, Koper and his col- they could dramatically underestimate the time it could leagues will try to map the plumbing system that feeds take for that rock to move into a magma reservoir that hydrothermal vents beneath the northern end of could someday generate a major eruption.